How big will it be when .....

by Charles Williams
(Halifax, Nova Scotia)

Some years ago I took my youngest son to one of my favorite fishing holes some 30 miles from where we lived. He was 4 years old at the time. We arrived just as dawn broke, my favorite fishing time!) and I was anxiously looking forward to several hours flyfishing. Well, as luck would have it, just minutes after setting up a rod for my son and still setting up mine, he caught a nice sea-run brookie. Much to my chagrin he now wanted to go home and show mommy his very first fish! To him a wooper of some 14 inches! Trying to convince him to wait and catch a bigger one fell on deaf ears. So home we headed and I hadn't even wet a line. On the way home he began to question me. "Dad, how long is my fish? How much do he weigh?", etc., etc. Then, after a long silence he asks: "And Dad, how big will it be when we get home and tell mommy?"